Startup Diaries: It’s Sleepless, Exciting, & Overwhelming!

The NextWomen Fashion & Retail Theme

When I graduated from FIDM with a degree in
Merchandise Product Development, I knew eventually I would have my own brand.
Little did I know almost 2 years to the day upon graduating, I would be
quitting my ‘job’ and working full time on the launch of my own brand. It was a very exciting/daunting day.

Like everything, 30:Fifteen, started out as
just an idea in my head and a couple of fashion sketches in my note pad (that I
carried around with me everywhere), but when it dawned on me I was never going
to progress in my current position as quickly as I wanted to due to the current
economic climate, I started to verbalise my ideas to my circle of
influence. I got some great feed back,
so much so that I began to believe that I could make this a reality.

The collection is divided up into 4 women:
Alethia, Sue, Anna and Jane. Each woman has a different focus and style but all
four embody the 30 fifteen qualities and confidence.

The collection is based
around three core colours: Black, Chalk, and Grey and three detail colours
blue, pink and lilac. The cuts are very individual to the girl. For example:
Sue is designed to accentuate the shoulders and back and flatter the hips and
waist. I have always lived a very active lifestyle mainly because my family are
very active and sporty but not every woman has it in their blood. My main
goal behind the brand is to encourage women to get moving by looking gorgeous
doing it

I started off by drawing CADs of all my
sketches along with tech paks, but then spent as much time as I could doing
research on the market, potential customers and then drafting a business
strategy. I quickly found myself in front of some potential investors pitching
my ideas.

I couldn’t believe how
impressed the investors were and how encouraging they were; it was a very
surreal time.

One of our investors had a
really strong relationship with a manufacturers who specialised in knits, so a
couple of months later I was on a flight over to Greece to meet them, source
fabrics and start the processes of my debut collection!

From that trip onwards, my evenings, free
time and weekends were spent working on the brand: liaising with the
manufacturers, holding fit samples, speaking with potential buyers, creating
the website and planning our lookbook shoot.

It was a very sleepless, exciting,
and overwhelming time. I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

So now, I am living the dream of running my
own brand, I’ll be honest, there aren’t fewer sleepless nights, but the days
are never the same. I go from spending a day doing fits, to sketching new
designs and liaising on new fabrics. Every day is different. We launch our
collection at Pure London 10th- 12th Feb and I could not be more excited about the
future of 30:Fifteen or in fact proud of where we have come the last year. It
is possible to feel good and look good.

Seeing a
gap in the market for high quality, stylish and affordable tennis and active
wear for women, Emily Tonkin decided to create her very own sportswear
collection, 30:Fifteen. Emily grew up in Wadhirst,
East Sussex and spent a lot of her childhood playing Tennis and
dancing. After her A-levels, Emily decided to join professional
performing arts college ‘The Centre’ to peruse a career in dance with Musical
Theatre, and in 2009 moved to LA to study acting. Emily’s career
plan took a swift change as she later decided to study Merchandise Product
Development at FIDM. It was not longbefore Emily
was inspired to create her own clothing range and spent her free time building
and developing 30:Fifteen, a high quality and innovative tennis range,
designed by women for women.

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The NextWomen is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from
startups to companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and networks,
offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success.

About TNW

The NextWomen is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from
startups to companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and networks,
offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success. Join the community too! - See more at: http://www.thenextwomen.com/about-us/contributors#sthash.9GODHllB.dpuf

The NextWomen is a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from
startups to companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and networks,
offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success. Join the community too! - See more at: http://www.thenextwomen.com/membership/sign-up#sthash.0ApND3BW.dpuf

The NextWomen is
a community of Investors, Entrepreneurs & Advisers. We
build formats to support the growth of female entrepreneurs -from startups to
companies making millions. We provide access to capital, resources and
networks, offering our community a support infrastructure critical for success.